HD to Digibeta

I have a project which is now finished - its a 3 minute music video - it was filmed on HDV 1080i50 and I have an uncompressed MOV file. 1440 x 1080. widescreen

The file is 16GB

now normally I would stick it onto a hard drive and deliver to a production facility who will print the video to digibeta ready for broadcast

However in this instance the client wishes to do this themselves, the rub is that they are in another country and want me to send the file on a DVD.

so what would you suggest I compress the file to? Its only 3 minutes, so I was hoping there would be a format that wouldn't compromise the quality of the digibeta, but still be under 4GB. Maybe using a decent codec. I have heard the HDV codec is rubbish.

Similar to when you author a DVD exporting to a MPEG2 it makes the file much smaller, there is no point me sending 5 DVDs when it will easily fit onto one.

Can your client discern quality loss?
Is there a reason to mash the file to under 4GB and then go to DigiBeta?
The client would rather a mashed file on DVD than pay a few Euros for a DigiBeta dub sent to them?
Something's missing here and I'm too polite to make the suggestion what that is.

16GB uncompressed to 4GB isn't going to be an improvement over an HDV master.
The hard part about making a suggestion is that when a client insists on the above I'd be suspicious about whether they'd know how to handle anything you sent them.

Send HDV master from timeline but who knows if they can play the tape.
Send them the file on hard drive or, maybe 16GB USB flash memory stick (14.9GB max though).
Do they even have the ability to use an uncompressed file?
Why MUST it be on DVD? Something's just plain not making sense with this request.

Your client has to tell you what they can handle. If they want the music video to fit on a DVD but plan using it as a master to make a DigiBeta, that might be too tough for them to answer.

If your client is going to DigiBeta they may be satisfied with a SD conversion on disc. You don't mention whether your 16GB is HD or SD frame size. If HD, try doing the conversion to SD first (uncompressed). That should drop the file size down but it may not be smaller that 4GB (my math brain isn't working yet today).

Another variant is to deliver an MPEG2 Program or Transport stream at a very high data rate burned to DVD but again the client has to tell you what they can handle. If you want to deliver HD try a data rate of around 40mbps. SD try around 25mbps. These will EASILY fit on a DVD and would be good enough for broadcast. You can certainly push the data rate much higher to fit 3 minutes on a 4GB (4.3GB) DVD.

Keep in mind that none of these formats are DVDs he could play from a "set top" box.